If you claim to know the true reason why Ingleburn got its name, it’s odds-on you’ll get an argument in return. Because everyone seems to have a different story.
One version suggests it was named after an English farm or town by Richard Atkins, Judge-Advocate of the early colony and owner of Denham Court.
A more common tale says the “Ingleburn” title was coined by Governor Lachlan Macquarie. This comes from the fact inge means “bend” and burn means “stream” in the Gaelic tongue. Macquarie was born and bred in the Gaelic-speaking Scottish Highlands and from 1810-22 made several visits to both the Georges River and Bunbury-Curran Creek – which both flow through the area with many curves and bends.
We do know for sure that the site of Ingleburn was originally known as “Soldier Flat”. This was because four old soldiers of the NSW Corps were allowed to take up farm grants there in 1809. These men were William Hall, William Neale, Joshua Alliot and Timothy Loughlin.
By 1826, Neale’s 80-acre (30ha) grant was owned by an ex-convict called David Noonan who also purchased other sites, building up a farm of 193 acres (77ha) on the modern location of Ingleburn’s town centre. Mary Ruse – the daughter of famous pioneer James Ruse – was Noonan’s housekeeper and purchased the farm for herself in 1841.
Dr Carol Liston claims in her Campbelltown – A Bicentennial History that Mary held it until her death in 1874. “Elias P. Laycock purchased her farm in 1881 and his home was called Ingleburn House,” Dr Liston wrote. So why then did the town adopt this particular name? The answer lies in the railway.
“Campbelltown’s Streets and Suburbs – How and why they got their names” written by Jeff McGill, Verlie Fowler and Keith Richardson, 1995, published by Campbelltown and Airds Historical Society.
Reproduced with permission of the authors.
